Content delivery systems, which take a variety of different architectures, provide content to users. Content, in this context, could mean any or all of video, audio, or audiovisual content, including Internet web pages, interactive computer games, or other possibilities. Typically, a communications network is used to deliver content via one or more modalities to a customer premises equipment (CPE) device. The transmission modalities can include, for example, an Ethernet cable, a satellite dish, a coaxial cable, a telephone line (including DSL connections), broadband over power line, or a terrestrial television antenna. A CPE device can be, for example, a television (TV), set-top box (STB), or gateway device (GW). A CPE device can be operable to tune, demodulate, decrypt and decode the content for delivery of the content to a user's display, such as a screen, television, or monitor, which is connected to the customer premises equipment.
As mentioned, the customer premises equipment can be used to obtain the content by, for example, tuning to a particular channel from a cable or satellite television signal for display, or in the case of IP protocol based delivery, receiving unicast and multicast IP packets. One of the characteristics associated with such device behavior is that there is a delay experienced by a user when a user initiates a command, for example using a remote control, to tune to another channel, or watch another program. Between the time a user requests a channel or program change, to the time the new program appears on the user's display, the user might see a black or still screen for a brief moment (i.e., mute to black, or mute to still), which can be milliseconds to seconds.
To minimize this delay, the present application describes a system and method whereby the decoder of a customer premises equipment continues to decode data in the pipeline so that content can be display while the new channel is being tuned to (or new content is being obtained).
It is noted that while the accompanying figures serve to illustrate embodiments of concepts that include the claimed invention, and explain various principles and advantages of those embodiments, the claimed invention is not limited to the concepts displayed, as additional embodiments would be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein such that a display of certain concepts are not necessary to understand such example implementations.